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IBM MQ vs TIBCO Enterprise Message Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM MQ
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
1st
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
169
Ranking in other categories
Message Queue (MQ) Software (1st)
TIBCO Enterprise Message Se...
Ranking in Business Activity Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Business Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM MQ is 43.4%, up from 41.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service is 19.4%, down from 27.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Md Al-Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and secure performance consistently enhances message transfer
IBM MQ is more reliable and secure than other software. There is a saying that for the last 30 years IBM MQ has never been hacked. It is more secure and reliable. Whenever the configuration is done, I do not have to touch it again. It works fine, it is stable, and its communication is to the point and accurate. All performance-related aspects are better. Performance-wise, it is scalable, and other features such as DR, DC, replication, and active passive mode are complex to configure, but it remains scalable. The pricing model for IBM MQ could be more flexible for clients.
Ray Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
A value-for-money solution with the requisite features to facilitate efficient communication within an organization
We have been struggling with the stability of TIBCO Enterprise Message Service (EMS), but now I don't know how to differentiate whether the issues are caused by the infrastructure or the product itself. So, I am hesitant to provide a rating because I suspect that it might be due to my setup or environment. I really don't know how to evaluate the product independently. We have faced challenges with EMS, but I am unsure if it is related to infrastructure or the product itself. Even if I reach out for support, I am uncertain if the issue will be resolved since it could be partly related to the product. It's a tough situation.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The usability of the solution is very good."
"Integrates between distributed systems: For example, it can help integrate processing between mainframe, client-server, web-based applications by integrating the messages, supporting Service Oriented Architecture."
"The solution can scale well."
"I haven't seen any issues with respect to the message loss."
"RabbitMQ and Kafka require more steps for setup than IBM MQ. Installation of the IBM product is very simple."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"I appreciate the level of control we have over queue managers, queues, and the messaging itself. That provides good security. So, the control and scalability of messaging are important to me."
"The product helps us monitor messages with other queues, view duplicated messages and control undelivered messages."
"It is very useful tool. It is also very easy to learn and implement.​"
"It allows us to achieve synchronous as well as asynchronous communication with the added advantage of making the communication reliable."
"I like TIBCO's ability to create versioned queues and persistent messages."
"​The initial setup is straightforward and the product documentation is very good.​"
"The Enterprise Messaging Server will store the message and wait for other subscribers to come onto the network."
"We have implanted the core middleware solution for the organization using this product and it is responsible for communication between different applications."
"TIBCO Enterprise Message Service's most valuable features are rapid zero-code integration and its large number of adapters and plugins."
"The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server."
 

Cons

"I wanted to upgrade Windows Server. It's not that easy to move."
"In terms of volume, it is not able to handle a huge volume. We also have limitations of queues related to IBM MQ. We often need to handle a very big volume, but currently we do have limitations. If those kinds of limitations could be relaxed, it would help us to work better."
"Customer support response times could be improved."
"The clustering capabilities have provided some difficulties when it comes to resiliency. This has been a challenge for managing the environment."
"We need to have a better administration console and better monitoring features. Right now, they are not good and could be a lot better."
"Scaling is difficult with IBM MQ."
"It would be great if the dashboard had additional features like a board design."
"Support can be better because sometimes we need explanations for some behaviors of the product, and it's not easy to reach the proper person in IBM support."
"Overall, my experience with the support team has been disappointing."
"​Since all the communications goes through this product, it acts as a single point of failure."
"TIBCO also has its proprietary line of cloud-based applications, but specifically, these two products are not cloud compatible."
"An area for improvement would be integration with the API layer."
"I would like to see better integration with Java and Apache Kafka."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"To implement such an IBM solution, a company has to pay a lot in term of licensing and consultancy. A pricing model might be a better option."
"I think it's pretty reasonable, but I'm not so too sure of the current pricing strategy from IBM. We use many bundled services, and most often, we go through a service provided by some other third-party implementation. So, I can't really give an honest opinion about that."
"I think the pricing is reasonable, especially with IIB as a part of it."
"There is real money involved here. As compared to RabbitMQ, IBM MQ is on the higher side in terms of cost."
"Most of our customers are quite happy with the solution but they have an issue with the cost. They want to move to cheaper solutions."
"The licensing fees are paid quarterly and they are expensive."
"In terms of cost, IBM MQ is slightly on the higher side."
"IBM MQ has a flexible license model based on the Processor Value Unit (PVU) and I recommend it."
"In our case, we didn't pay for each product separately. We simply paid for all those companies that provided the components."
"​The cost of licensing is very high. One should go for the product only if they need to ensure message reliability and they cannot afford to lose messages.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
37%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
44%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
4%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is MQ software?
Hi As someone with 45+ years of experience in the Transaction and Message Processing world, I have seen many "MQ" solutions that have come into the market place. From my perspective, while each pro...
What are the differences between Apache Kafka and IBM MQ?
Apache Kafka is open source and can be used for free. It has very good log management and has a way to store the data used for analytics. Apache Kafka is very good if you have a high number of user...
How does IBM MQ compare with VMware RabbitMQ?
IBM MQ has a great reputation behind it, and this solution is very robust with great stability. It is easy to use, simple to configure and integrates well with our enterprise ecosystem and protocol...
What do you like most about TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
The setup was done by TIBCO. It has been stable and has a server.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
Maybe the capability to undergo training for specific functionalities, such as implementing Kaspersky for handling high volume transactions in TIBCO Enterprises Message Service. Occasionally, we su...
What is your primary use case for TIBCO Enterprise Message Service?
I use TIBCO Enterprise Message Service for some of my internal communications. For instance, if there is an API called A that needs to communicate with an API referred to as B, we prefer to use mes...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere MQ
Enterprise Message Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deutsche Bahn, Bon-Ton, WestJet, ARBURG, Northern Territory Government, Tata Steel Europe, Sharp Corporation
BNL, SunGard, TUI Group, UTi Worldwide, Yellow Pages Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM MQ vs. TIBCO Enterprise Message Service and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.